In Praise of Gendercide

The House of Representatives this past week fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass a bill banning abortion based on sex selection — sometimes called "gendercide" because it's usually aimed at exterminating baby girls. Most Republicans voted for banning gendercide, most Democrats against.

I have to say, I'm with the Democrats on this one. The Supreme Court has decided that aborting our children is a right enshrined in the Constitution. By what logic, then, do we withhold that right from people based on their motives for exercising it?

If a woman chooses to snuff out her unborn child because it's retarded or handicapped or female, who are we to say her nay? How would we even know why she's doing it? Are we going to interrogate her? Administer a lie detector test? And what happens when our genetic testing capabilities improve? Are we going to stop her from aborting a child who is genetically destined to be gay? Or unintelligent? Or untalented? Or freckled? Of course not. How could we? As MSNBC host Alex Wagner said, praising the House Democrats' decision, "It's about a woman's right to choose!"

Exactly. The Supreme Court has ruled that a woman has a right to choose to abort a child growing inside her own body. And even that doesn't really make sense. It still limits a woman's constitutional sphere of action. After all, a person has the same right to life whether he's in one place or another, so if a baby has no right to life in the womb, why should that status change just because he comes out? It doesn't make any sense.